Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsMultiple Headaches
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2020
I purchased my Hoover Smartwash direct from Amazon on Black Friday last year. (For some reason Amazon hasn't tagged my review "verified purchaser"!)
This Smartwash deep cleans fairly well but it did more harm than good insofar as it dispersed the odor associated with a pet stain. In addition, I have encountered more trouble using this "easy clean" model in comparison to an older Hoover Spinscrub.
The main drawback is the various parts that come apart and are easily damaged or lost. The rubber gasket that keeps the cleaning solution from running out got separated from the outer plastic cap and, being that it was lodged in the neck of the cleaning solution bottle, it made it so I couldn't fill it. Trying to pry the gasket out and then figure out how it was supposed to integrate with the exterior cap was a nightmare that required a tremendous amount of hand strength. Today I went to use my Smartwash and, having just filled the clean water reservoir, I lifted it out of the sink the entire contents began emptying on my floor as I began moving toward the vacuum. I quickly flipped it over and found that a stopper-type piece was missing from the bottom pass-through. (As an aside, the exploded parts diagram in the manual is so badly illustrated that it is useless. I had to use Google to view images of this reservoir before I could confirm that a part had indeed gone missing.) Perhaps I will find it laying in my garage somewhere but my fear is that this stopper may have gone down the drain as I was filling the clean water reservoir (in which case I may have plumbing problems!). Until I find it, the machine is unusable. (This after I already sprayed more than one kind of pre-treatment on my carpet stains that have made my house smell like a chemical factory!)
As to the drying feature, the heat application is questionable. In all honesty, I don't know if it is applying any heat at all. It still takes my carpets about 5-8 hours to dry depending on how much I go over the same area to get it clean. As best I can tell, even when switched to the "dry only" mode, the suction that removes the liquids from the carpet primarily operates when the machine is pulled backwards, which is consistent with how it works in cleaning mode (forward is wash, backward is dry). The water is not heated by this unit so if you want hot water you have to fill it with hot water yourself. (Advertising non-existent "heat" seems to be a common ploy among carpet shampooers.) On this unit there is no spray trigger and there is no rinse-only setting. If you don't want soap dispensed, it's necessary to remove the soap dispensing bottle.
After adopting a new dog in May, I had occasion to use this with a fresh (not dried) pet stain that I pre-treated with pet stain remover. The urine smell ended up all over my bedroom carpet and two months later, despite two attempts to remove it, I still smell it. (Rather than pulling the odor up, it just distributed the still-wet urine around the room despite having attempted to spot clean it beforehand.) Perhaps this is unavoidable but no matter if I pre-treat or use the Hoover pet shampoo, pet urine stains eventually reappear on my carpets. (The few I have managed to permanently remove required multiple attempts with numerous combinations of products to spot treat the area.)
This machine is certainly lighter weight and easier to clean than the old Spinscrub model but it also seems to be more finicky about how parts go back together. While using the machine, I have had occasions where I have emptied the dirty water reservoir and not had my suction restored. On one occasion it took me resetting the reservoirs about four times before the suction finally kicked in.
Much of my home has wood-look laminate, which is the reason I went with this Smartwash upgrade — in the hope of having less puddling beneath the machine when I pause to empty out the dirty water or to refill the clean water reservoir. My hand-me-down Spinscrub had begun leaking quite badly on the floor whenever I "parked" it. This new one doesn't leak as badly but I was nonetheless frustrated to find that it still drips enough to create a hazard for my floor lifting. Every time I use this carpet shampooer on my area rugs I have to chase it with a old towel because it leaves the edges of my floor and the thresholds to my carpeted bedrooms far too wet.
All in all, I think the Smartwash design is overrated. It takes twice as long to wash and dry the carpet because you're washing and drying simultaneously. My impression is that this unit puts down too much water too fast and that without the reverse "dry" function, it would be apparent just how badly it is saturating the carpets. It takes forever to dry the carpet given the lack of heating and the fact that the suction is only really effective when the unit is pulled backward — meaning only about 50 percent of your arm movements counts toward drying. On a positive note, I appear to have been spared catastrophic failure. (Reviews elsewhere have reported the rollers binding up, possibly due to corroded bearings, after which the non-replaceable belt burns up.)
In conclusion, I think I would like this unit a lot more if the parts that attach to the plastic reservoirs would not separate improperly, fall off or get lost. Hoover never seems to have spare parts for this model stock so in damaging the rubber gasket on the cleaning bottle and losing the rubber stopper that keeps the clean water from running out of the bottom of the reservoir, I am forced to replace the entire receptacle, not just the part I need (and even used on a well-known auction site, the parts aren't cheap). Negatives aside, it does seem to deep clean the carpets rather well judging by how much blackened wastewater it pulls up.
Update:
I reduce my review from two stars to one based on this Smartwash nearly electrocuting my spouse today.
I bought this on Black Friday 2019. It has been used about seven times to clean carpet in my home. I don't have wall-to-wall carpeting so I would say that the amount of use on this has been moderate, at best.. Today it began to throw sparks while I was standing on wet carpet in bare feet because the electric cord worked it's way out of the back of the unit and had become partially detached (the first symptom was that the motor was cutting out intermittently). I called in my spouse who immediately went to try to push the electric cord a quarter of an inch back into the unit while it was "off" due to the electricity cutting off the motor, only for it to roar back to life and begin sparking just in time for me to shout "STOP! It's plugged into the wall and the carpet is wet!" (electricity + arcing + water, probably not a good combination!).
This product should not have become an "Amazon Choice"! When you look closely at the manufacturer ID plate affixed to the unit you will see it is not manufactured by Hoover but for Hoover by a Chinese conglomerate. I expected, based on other reviews, that there could be problems with the rollers binding, the bearings stripping out and the non-replaceable belt breaking — because that seems to be the main route of failure with this model per web reviews — but to have an electrical problem with the cord was completely unexpected (hadn't snagged the cord on anything either). The only thing I can speculate to for the cause of the cord working loose internally is because the cord mounts right next to the hook where you wind the cord for storage. Simply winding the cord around the hook was enough to put strain on the connection and work it loose over time. Winding the cord too tightly around the hook might be a case of "user error" but it should not be *easy* for a hardwired electric cord to detach internally and begin to dislodge, posing an electrical/fire hazard.
Hoover needs to perform their own manufacturing, instead of allowing third party manufacturers to use their branding, and relocate production to the United States, Mexico or elsewhere in North America. This isn't the first time an Amazon-based purchase has posed a serious safety hazard. Last year, an egg cooker I purchased on Amazon without any warning arced all the way back to my electrical outlet where it fried a Belkin surge protector and the outlet itself, nearly sparking an electrical fire — after which I had to call an electrician and pay a hefty bill for an emergency call (to ensure no smoldering was going on elsewhere in my home wiring). I'd pay more to get a North American-built product. Is Hoover ever going to build one again?
